MANSON ON A MISSION
Rowing: Single sculler returns from Europe with fire in his belly
All 1.88m of Robbie Manson always thought that he was ‘‘too small’’ to be a world-class single sculler.
With two wins at World Cup events in Europe in recent months – including a new world’s best time – the Kiwi rower has quickly put that idea to rest.
Men’s single sculling is a Land of the Giants environment – and while Manson has a 1.97m arm-span, he admits ‘‘I don’t have the longest legs either’’.
‘‘You look at guys like Mahe [Drysdale] and Rob [Waddell] and [Ondrej] Synek – all the guys that I were racing really were a head taller than me,’’ Manson said.
But he was buoyed by the thought fellow New Zealand rowers of a similar size like Hamish Bond and Joseph Sullivan had been dominant performers, and by his form before heading overseas.
‘‘I hoped I could make the final but just before I went overseas in training and in the winter series racing we do, I went a lot faster than I expected,’’ Manson said.
‘‘So I thought, ‘well, if I’m doing it here, why can’t I do it overseas?’ I guess that changed my expectations. I went away trying to win – but I didn’t want to say that too much in case it didn’t happen.’’
Manson stunned the rowing world at the World Cup event in Poland when he won the A final in the fastest time in history – six minutes 30.74 seconds – which pushed dual Olympic champ Drysdale out of the record books.
‘‘I got to Poznan and expected to be one of the fastest there and it went as good as I could have hoped.
‘‘I won the heat and the semifinal easily and went out to have my best race I could in the final, and it happened to be really fast conditions. I thought I might have been a couple of seconds off it [the world’s best time] – I only looked at my speed twice during the race. It varies stroke to stroke too – the second time I looked at it, I was under world record speed, so I kept my foot down to the line.
‘‘When I finished, I looked at the big screen and was blown away with how fast it was.’’
Manson also won at the final World Cup regatta of the season in Switzerland, after injury derailed his build-up.
‘‘Pretty much straight after Poznan, I had a sore rib – we weren’t really sure what it was so took it cautiously, thinking it could be a stress fracture.
‘‘Until I got a scan, which wasn’t
I looked at the big screen and was blown away with how fast it was. Robbie Manson
until London during the Henley regatta [that Manson had to skip] that we found out it wasn’t broken.
‘‘Until I got to Lucerne I hadn’t even been in the boat. I’d done a lot of work on the bike so l trusted my fitness and I know that I row technically pretty well, so it was just about getting back in the boat and making sure I still had my technique.’’
Against increased competition in Lucerne that included three-time Olympic medallist Synek, Manson won again despite ‘‘not having a very good race in the final’’.
Now back at Lake Karapiro training towards the 2017 world championships in Sarasota, United States, in late September, the former double sculler said he’s making further progress under coach Noel Donaldson.
‘‘When I’ve been in the single before it’s just been over summer, and just 50 per cent of the time at most.
‘‘So being able to concentrate 100 per cent on that boat, I feel like I’ve made some huge improvements.
‘‘Noel hasn’t tried change my technique completely, just finetuning. He’s got very high standards which has made me have very high standards as well.’’